Overwatch’s designers labored backwards from the animated brief to create Ashe and BOB

Overwatch’s latest hero, Ashe, is definitely a playable duo – she’s all the time received her burly sidekick B.O.B. at her aspect. But one of the crucial distinctive issues about Ashe is that she was created for the Reunion brief first, and Blizzard’s designers labored backwards from there to make her and B.O.B. into in-game characters.

Overwatch lead designer Geoff Goodman instructed us that lots of Ashe’s design components got here out of watching Reunion come collectively. Instead of designing the duo for the game after which introducing them in a brief, within the case of Ashe and B.O.B., the method was reversed.

Goodman stated Overwatch’s design group members had completely different concepts about learn how to understand Ashe within the game, however that B.O.B. was non-negotiable.

“The one thing that was pretty consistent was having B.O.B. in there, usually as the ultimate,” he recalled. “It was like, okay, that’s probably definitely happening if we’re all that excited about it.”

Both characters offered their very own challenges, Goodman stated. The Overwatch group labored with Call of Duty builders Treyarch and Infinity Ward to tune Ashe’s aim-down-sights and audio in order that her lever-action rifle feels good to fireplace. But introducing B.O.B. was one of the crucial daunting design challenges they’d confronted.

First, they needed to nail down how he was going to be launched into the gamespace – was he a full new hero? Was he somebody who Ashe might resurrect? The group experimented with a number of concepts, and got here again to the drafting board after working into issues (as an example, resurrecting B.O.B. whereas ready for a game would set off a match to start out earlier than each groups had been full).

Once they’d settled on pulling B.O.B. in as an final, extra issues arose – and retaining the character inside a strict reminiscence finances was a giant one. At one level, somebody recommended not having skins for B.O.B.

“Almost immediately, everyone was like, ‘There’s no way, are you crazy? Everyone’s gonna immediately want skins for both of those pair,’” Goodman stated.

As irritating as getting B.O.B. to work was, Goodman stated the group agreed he needed to be a part of the Ashe package deal.

“We were talking a lot about that and what we kind of decided was she probably wasn’t worth doing if we couldn’t get B.O.B. in there,” he stated. “Because it was such a strong concept.”

Matt has had a chance to get hands-on with the outcomes of the method, and he says Ashe feels satisfyingly contemporary in Overwatch’s pantheon of heroes – though he warns that she’ll be extra viable for gamers who’re extra affected person than most.

We’re wanting ahead to seeing how Ashe and B.O.B., Overwatch’s first reverse-engineered heroes, shake up the Overwatch meta.

 
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esports, FPS, Overwatch

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